things that are not hurtfull enjoy a free life, nay our very soul wanders beyond her confines, to show she is not under restraint. I think nature's at a wedding, we see nothing but dances, feasts, and balls; and he that should seek a quarrell, would not have the contentment to find one, unlesse those that arise amongst the flowers contending for beauty; where 'tis possible you may see a bloudy pink, newly come from combat, fall with wearinesse; there a rosebud, sweld by the ill successe of his antagonist, blowes for joy; there the lilly, that collosse amongst flowers, that curded giant, proud to see his image triumph in the Loire, raises himselfe above his fellowes, looks down upon them, and makes the violet prostrate herselfe at his feet; which being jealous and angry, that she cannot rise to the same heighth, doubles her sweetnesse, that our noses may give her that precedency which our eyes deny her; there, a bunch of time humbles itself before the tulip, because she beares a chalice; in another place, the earth, vext that the trees carry the blossomes and flowers she hath crowned them withall so high and remote from her, refuses to give them any fruits till they have return'd her her flowers."

A few more of his pleasant extravagancies on Summer, and we have done with the seasons.

"For my part, I know not henceforward what posture this poor god [the sun] can put himself into to please us: he sends the birds to give us good-morrow with their musick, he hath warm'd our bathes, and doth not invite us to them, till he hath first plunged himself in to see if there be any danger. What could he adde to all these honours, unlesse to eat at our table? And judge you what he seeks when he is never neerer our houses than at noon. After all this, sir, do you complain that he dryes up the humours of our rivers? Alas, were it not for this attraction, what would have become of us? The floods, the lakes, and the fountains, have sucked up all the water that made the earth fertile; and we are angry that, to the hazard of giving the middle region the dropsie, hee undertakes to draine 'em, and walks the clouds, those great watring-pots, over us, with which he quenches the thirst of our fields, at a season in which he is so much taken with our beauties, that he endevours to see us naked. I cannot imagine, if hee did not attract a great quantity of water to cool his raies, how he could kisse us without burning us; but whatsoever we pretend, we have alwayes water enough to spare, for when the canicular, by his heat, leaves us but precisely enough for our necessities, hath he not taken care the dogs should run mad, for feare they should drinke any from us?"

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Besides, if he intended to burn us, he would not send the dew to cool and refresh us; that blessed dew, that makes us believe, by his infinite drops of light, that the torch of the world is in the dust in our fields; that a million of little heavens are fallen upon the earth, or that it is the soul of the universe, that, knowing not what honour to render to his father, goes out to meet and receive him on the tops of

odoriferous flowers. The country-fellow, he thinks they are silver-lice falne from the sun's head, which he combs in the morning; anotherwhile, he believes the sweat of the aire, corrupted by heat, hath bred these glittering wormes; or takes it for the spittle that falls from the planets' mouths as they sleep: to conclude, let it be what it will, it imports not. Were they amorous tears, her grief becomes her too well to afflict us: besides, this is a time that nature puts all her treasures into our powers; the sun in person waites on the beds of Ceres, and every eare of corne seems a bakehouse of little milky loaves which he hath taken the paines to bake. If any one complaines that his too long stay with us makes our leaves and fruits yellow, let him know that this monarque of the starres does it to make our climate the garden of the Hesperides, by giving golden leaves to the trees as well as golden fruits: notwithstanding all this, 'tis to little purpose for him to heate himselfe in his zodiak with the lyon; he cannot stay four and twenty houres with the virgin, but hee'l be enamoured;-hee'l every day grow colder, &c. &c.

What a fantastic yet agreeable description have we of the shadow of trees in the water, upon which Cyrano seems to have gazed, until his own head swam with delight.

"Lying on my belly upon the green banck of a river, and my back strecht under the branches of a willow that views himselfe in it, I see the history of Narcissus renued in the trees: a hundred poplars tumble a hundred other poplars into the stream, and these aquatiques were so frighted at the fall, that they tremble still every day for feare of a wind that touches them not. I imagine, that night having made all things black, the sun plunged them in the river to wash them. But what shall I say of this liquid glasse, this little world turn'd topsie-turvy, that places the oakes under the mosse, and the heavens lower then the oakes? Are they not of those virgins formerly metamorphos'd into trees, that still finding their chastity violated by the kisses of Apollo, desperatly cast themselves into the floud with their head formost; or is it not Apollo himselfe, who, offended that they durst keep the aire from him, hath thus hanged them by the feet. Now the fish walke in the woods, and whole forrests in the midst of the water without wetting themselves: there's an old elme amongst the rest would make you laugh, which doth almost loll on the other side, to the end that this image taking the same posture, he might make of his body and his shaddow an angle for the fish: the river is not ingrateful to the willowes for their visites; she hath made the universe, bor'd through, transparent, lest the down of her head should foule their branches; and not content to have made crystall with mud, she hath vaulted the heavens and the planets underneath, that it might not be said, that those that visited her were deprived of the light which they forsook for her. Now we may look downe on the heavens, and by her the light may brag, that, as weak as he is at four in the morning, he has the power to precipitate the heavens into the deep but admire the power that the lower region of the soul exercises

upon the higher. After having discovered that all these wonders are but delusions of the sense, I cannot for all hinder my sight, from taking this imaginary firmament for a great lake on which the earth floates. The nightingale, who from the top of a bough sees himselfe in it, believes he's fallen into the river; he is on the top of an oake and yet is afraid of being drowned; but, after having freed himselfe by his eyes and his feet from feare, his picture then seeming a rivall come to combate, he chatters, and warbles, and that other nightingale, to his thinking, silently does the same, and cozens the soul with so many charms, that one would fancy he sung purposely to be heard by our eyes; I think he by motion chatters and sends no sound at all to the ear, that he may at the same time answer his enemy, and that he may not infringe the lawes of that country he inhabites, whose people are dumb: the perch, the trout, and the goldenie, that see him, know not whether it be a fish cloathed with feathers, or a bird devested of his body; they gather about him, and look on him as a monster; and the pike, the tyrant of rivers, jealous to see a stranger in his throne, seeks him; when he hath found him, touches him and yet cannot feel him, runs after him when he's upon him, and wonders that he hath so often passed by him without doing him any hurt."

We specially beg the attention of all ladies who have red hair, to our author's ardent vindication of its supremacy.

"Glorious fruit of the essence of the most beautifull visible beeing! intelligent reflection of the radicall fire of nature! image of the sun, the most perfect! I am not so brutish as to mistake for my queen, the daughter of him that my ancestors acknowledged for their god. Athens bemoaned the fall of her crown, in the ruine of Apollo's temple Rome ceased to command the world, when she denyed incense to the light and Bizantium first began to inslave mankind, when she tooke for her arms those of the sun's sister: as long as Persia did homage to this universall spirit, for the rayes that she held from him, foure thousand yeares could not make old the vigor of her monarchy; but being ready to see his images broken, he took sanctuary in Pequin from the abuses of Babylon."

"A brave head, covered with red hair, is nothing else but the sun in the midst of his rayes; or the sun himself is onely a great eye under a red periwig; yet all the world speaks ill of it, because few have the honour to be so. And among a hundred ladies, you shall hardly find one, because they being sent from heaven to command, it's necessary there should be more subjects than soveraigns. Do we not see, that all things in nature are more or lesse noble, according as they are more or lesse red; amongst the elements, he that contains the most essence, and the least matter or substance, is the fire, because of his colour; gold hath received of his dye, the honour to reign over the mettalls; and of all the planets, the sun is most considerable, onely because he is most red; the hairy comets that flie up and down the skies, at the death of heroes, are they not the red mustachoes of the gods, that they pluck off for griefe? Castor and

Pollux, those little fires that make seamen foretell the end of a storm, can they be any thing else than the red hairs of Juno, which she, in token of love, sends to Neptune? In fine, had it not been for the desire men had to possesse the fleece of a red sheep, the glory of thirty demy-gods would be in the cradle of those things that never were born. And (a ship being yet but a recent invention) Americus would not have told us that the world hath foure parts. Apollo, Venus, and Love, the fairest divinityes of the pantheon, are crimson red; and Jupiter is brown but by accident, because of the smoak of his thunder, which hath blackt him. But if the examples of mythologie do not satisfie the obstinate, let them consult history. Šampson, whose strength hung at his locks, did he not receive his miraculous energy from the rednesse of his hair? Did not the destinies make the conservation of the empire of Athens, depend upon one red hair of Nisus? And God, would he not have sent the light of faith to the Ethiopians, if he could have found amongst them but one red? One would not doubt of the excellency of those persons, if one considered, that all men that were not made by men, and for whose forming God himself chose and kneaded the substance, were red. Adam, that was created by God's own hand, ought to be the most accomplisht of men -he was red. And all perfect philosophy ought to teach us, that nature which inclines to the most perfection, alwaies endeavours, in forming a man, to make a red one, just as she aspires to make gold by making of mercury, but that she seldom hits upon it. An archer is not esteemed unskilfull, who letting thirty arrowes flie, but five or six hits the mark. As the best ballanced constitution is that which is between flegmatick and melancholly, one must needs be very happy, to hit exactly an indivisible point. The flaxen and the black are besides it; that is to say, the fickle and the obstinate; between both is the medium, where wisdom, in favour of red men, hath lodged vertue, so their flesh is much more delicate, their blood more pure, their spirits more clarified, and consequently their intellect more accomplished, because of the perfect mixture of the foure qualities. This is the reason why red men become not so soon grey as those that are black, as if nature were angry and unwilling to destroy that, which she took a pleasure in making. In troth, I seldom see a flaxen head of hair, but I think of a distaff ill periwig'd. But I grant, that fair women when they are young, are pleasing; but as soon as their cheeks begin to grow woolly, would one not think that their flesh divides itself into little threads to make them a beard? I speak not of black beards, for 'tis well known, if the devill weare any, it cannot be but very dark. Since then we must all become slaves to beauty, is it not far better to be deprived of our freedom by golden chains, then by hempen cords, or iron fetters?"

The following description of a country house is to our minds exceedingly rich and beautiful.

"At the doore of the house, you meet [with a walke with five avenues in figure like a starre ;] the oakes that compose it make one with extasie admire the excessive height of their tops, raising one's eyes from

the root to the culmen; then precipitating them down againe. One doubts whether the earth beares them, and whether or no they carry not the earth at their roots: you would think that their proud heads are forced to bend under the weight of the heavenly globes, which burthen they with groaning support; their armes, stretcht toward heaven, embracing it, seeme to beg of the starrs their influences altogether pure, and to receive them before they have at all lost of their innocence in the bed of the elements. There on every side the flowers, having had no other gardener but nature, vent a sharp breath that quickens and satisfies the smell. The sweet innocence of a rose on the eglantine, and the glorious azure of a violet under the sweet briars, leaving us not the liberty of choice, make us judge that they are both one fairer than the other. The spring there composes all the seasons, there no venomous plant buds, but her birth soon betrayes her safety; there the brooks relate their travells to the pebbles; there a thousand feather'd voyces make the forrest ring with the sweet musick of their songs; and the sprightfull assembling of these melodious throats is so generall, that every leafe in the wood seemes to have taken the shape and the tongue of a nightingale: sometimes you shall heare 'em merrily tickle a consort, another while thay'le drag, and make their musick languish; by and by thaile passionate an elegie by interrupted sobbs; and then againe soften the violence of their voyces, more tenderly to excite pitty, and at last raise their harmony; and what with their crotchets and warbling, send forth their lives and their voyces together. Echo is so delighted with it, that she seemes to repeat their aires onely that she may learne them; and the rivolets jealous of their musique, as they fly away, grumble, much troubled that they cannot equall them. On the side of the castle, two walkes discover themselves, whose continued green frames an emerald too big for the sight: the confused mixture of colours that the Spring fastens to a million of flowers, scatters the changes of one another; and their tincture is so pure, that one may well judge, that they get so close one to another, onely to escape the amorous kisses of the wind that courts them. One would now take this meddow for a very calme sea; but when the least Zephyrus comes to wanton there, 'tis then a proud ocean full of waves, whose face, furrowed with frownes, threatens to swallow up those little fooles but because this sea discovers no shoare, the eye, as afrighted to have run so long without finding any coast, quickly dispatches the thought, and the thought being doubtfull too, that that which is the end of his sight, is the end of the world, doth almost perswade himselfe that this place is so full of charms, that it hath forced the heavens to unite themselves to the earth. In the midst of this so vast and yet so perfect carpet, runnes in with silver bubbles and streams a rustick fountaine, who sees the pillowes of his head enameled with jessemines, orange trees, and mirtles, and the little flowers that throng round about, would make one believe they dispute who shall view himselfe in the streame first; seeing her face so young and smooth as 'tis, which discovers not the least wrinckle, tis easie to judge she is yet in her mother's breast, and those great circles with which she binds and twines her selfe by reverting so often upon her selfe, witnesse that 'tis